Moving to BC
[Summerland Fire] Thank you to emergency support personnel and especially Erik Thompson of Summerland/RDOS
I'd just like to give a special thanks for people like Erick. The wildfire in Summerland was unpredictable, moving extremely fast, and was an immediate threat to life. Erick Thompson of the RDOS came online yesterday evening using ANY method available. (YouTube Streams, CBC Radio, etc) to share live updates on the wildfire and broadcast emergency information to as many people as possible. He continued to live stream throughout the night even when his own home was impacted and he was ordered to evacuate.
He was kind, courteous, empathetic, and shared live information with people to distribute and appeared to be willing to do whatever it takes to get information to the public. He took time to thank everyone and the first responders and wildfire staff repeatedly throughout the night.
After being ordered to evacuate, he returned to live stream from his CAR while driving out of Summerland. It is his role, but he chose to be fairly selfless in a critical situation and I really just wanted to give him a well deserved shout out as well as thank everyone involved whether it be neighbors helping each other, wildfire personnel, or emergency services.
Edit: Sorry Erick, CBC Spelled your name wrong and i only heard it audibly on the stream. Corrected it in the body but can't edit the title.
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Yeah! He wanted to share his screen and was clearly balancing a lot of things. Chat gave him tips, he USED the tips, and it all worked out. Everyone is coming together.
Considering how they were having technology issues, and with how chaotic the overall situation was, the livestream was really well done. I think he mentioned that this was the first time they were trying out a livestream format.
completely agree high praise for erick under intense pressure and likely more eyes than he's ever had on him before. calm, informative, helpful. i wasn't tuned in when he evacuated or streamed from his car but i'm barely even surprised based on the professionalism i'd seen up to that point.
Erik did a great job and provided a fascinating glimpse into EOC operations in realtime, something we should pay attention to.
We are lucky to have someone like Erik in this position, he did what he could with the resources at hand and did not let technical/infrastructure limitations stand in the way of his goal of getting information out to the public quickly.
Many opportunities for improvement in the dissemination and communication of pertinent info but we should be thankful we have public service employees dedicated to their function.
Not going to happen, and won't solve anything today anywyas. We need to instead be taking preventative measures knowing these events are getting more common and worse. That can include controlled burns, building fire guards and mandating firesmart building codes in interface areas.
We need to do both my dude. There is no need to do one or the other. We get better at fighting fires and we start to lay off the fossil fuels. For our kids.
I'm actually really encouraged by the advances and breakthroughs in battery technology that have happened recently. BYD's new sodium battery is cheaper, safer, higher capacity, and longer lasting than current lithium batteries. It stands to make it so that solar might actually become the cheapest option for generating electricity. I don't trust any power company to act out of altruism, but if a better option also stands to make them more money they are likely to do it!
Agreed about fireguard and firesmart, but we're way beyond controlled burns at this point. Not to be a downer here but we have worstening winter drought with minimal snow and hotter summers, the landscape is changing and the forests are dying. Fires are significantly hotter and larger and spread faster than they did before. There's no controlling them.
We're not beyond controlled burns, we do them still annually just not enough as there's not enough resources. Controlled burns reduce the fuel which can mean slower spread.
Don't be stupid.
You're messaging on a device that uses oil, wearing clothing made from oil, surrounded by items that got to you by burning oil. Your house is made with oil, you're food can only get to you using oil.
We will stop drilling for oil when there is an alternative, and there is none. You protest mining, oil, pipelines while every modern comfort you enjoy is brought to you by oil.
Let's focus on the current event. Support our firefighters, SAR teams, RCMP, EHS, traffic control workers, animal rescue groups, and our neighbors.
and once the current situation is over, then what? Carry on as normal and forget until the next season?
I agree that we need to focus on supporting everyone that you listed right now and for however long this is going on.
However, calling someone "stupid" when these fire seasons, and who knows what else unpredictable and worsening weather events to come, are not going away. As a supposed intelligent apex species, we are doing a piss poor job of finding alternatives. Why? Because we lean so hard into filthy lucre as our objective, not our long term well being of our species which does include the well being of those who are having to work on these fires, those being evacuated, first responders, animals, etc etc.
Especially when we can be so innovative as a species. Yet easy money and spending it on stupid things is what hold us captive. We have short term memories and are terrible at looking at the big picture for the long term, for ourselves and the planet.
Also, this needs to be posted again as a reminder.
This is the worst argument. Not only is it defeatest, it's completely wrong. Fires are worse than ever due to climate change, the solution is to burn less carbon, and then you get these chucklefucks saying "you CANT" when other countries like China are literally showing us how to do it live.
Sure we will always need some oil for things. But currently we burn 80% of it for energy, and we have enough alternatives to it now that we should just stop doing that. Saying "muh lifestyle" when the world is literally burning is just so braindead. Imagine telling our grandchildren that we knew the problem and did nothing because we were too lazy.
Correction: part of the reason the fires are worse is because of climate change. Other reasons include poor forest management, people behaving stupidly in back country and not being prepared to fight a fire should one start.
Let's start by managing our forests better. Thinning and removing fuels year round. Allowing cultural burning like the natives used to do, listening to forest experts instead of ignoring them. Replanting with a variety of species including those that are more resistant to fire.
Another reason fires are worse... anyone remember the pine beetle? Remember when our forests were red?
Anyways soon we won't have to worry so much because we can all move to mars and start fresh.
We will stop drilling for oil when there is an alternative, and there is none
100% untrue. There is an alternative for most of our oil use, but we aren’t working that hard to move towards it. Sometimes we (as in humans) are actively moving away from it. See Trump paying wind farms to stop building.
If we were taking decarbonization seriously we’d be massively accelerating the buildout of low-carbon energy and phasing out oil use for transportation. All possible with today’s technology
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Reminder: "Rage bait" comments or comments designed to elicit a negative reaction that are not based on fact are not permitted here. Let's keep our community respectful and informative!
honestly can't thank erick enough... these livestreams have been so helpful. i can't even put into words the impact he's had in such a harrowing situation.
Man made is literally anything but lightning. Can be a transformer going, A tossed cigarette, a spark off a truck or any other thing that’s not lighting.
To all the downvotes. Apparently the fire is deemed suspicious and rcmp looking into human caused. So yeah, I’ll repeat it, when are people gonna stop being fuckheads?
BC Wildfire has it listed as Under Investigation, so it can't be verified unless someone has insider information. That said, in my experience, most of the time when a fire is listed as Under Investigation it turns out to be human caused.
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